Crusoes Daughter

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She discovers a copy of Robinson Crusoe in the gloomy study of her aunts' house, and the book comes with her when she is taken off to a new home on the plains of York by Mr Thwaite, an elderly relative whose relationship to her is a mystery. There he and his effete sister — a nod to Ottoline Morrell — play host to impoverished artists and writers.

While they urge Tennyson and Dickens upon her, she stays true to the plainness of Defoe, arguing that Robinson Crusoe is "full of poetic truth … and an attempt at a universal truth very differently expressed". As Polly pursues her literary infatuation, the 20th century rages in the distance.

One admirer turns out, after his death in the first world war, to have been a mediocre poet whose love lyrics about "strawberries and nipples" shock her, while his war poetry prompts the barbed reflection that "under the mud of France there was dust that might have become of great account". Another beau, Theo Zeit, from a wealthy Jewish industrialist family, returns to Germany only to die in Auschwitz. Polly struggles with what it means to be a woman in the modern world, worrying that without male advantages, or a husband, she will become part of the landscape.

Unable to love, her constant companion becomes three inches of whisky, from which she is only rescued in middle age when her maid marries a headmaster, thus upturning the social order and enabling Polly to become a teacher. Quirky, opinionated and gloriously solipsistic, Polly is a comic character whose struggles with identity reflect the struggles of England to come to terms with the end of empire.

She is also a literary cipher who is incarnated — and proscribed — by the fiction in which she finds herself. Being a creature of the 20th century, she rejects a life of bucolic peace on a Hardy-esque dairy farm, but cannot find a home in more modern scenarios either. The final chapter is written as a dramatic dialogue between Polly and Crusoe himself.

Crusoe's Daughter

There was a problem adding your email address. Be the first to discover new talent! Each week, our editors select the one author and one book they believe to be most worthy of your attention and highlight them in our Pro Connect email alert. Sign up here to receive your FREE alerts. By clicking on "Submit" you agree that you have read and agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. Do you work in the book industry? The eccentrics, which obviously were the secondary characters, were my most favourite.

The same applies to this one. In her loneliness, Polly turns to books and their comfort. In doing so, she identifies herself the most with Robinson Crusoe, who lived in isolation on an island for twenty eight years. She finds a way to cope with her loneliness and anguish as she grows up.

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Polly knows that she has to make her own life given the circumstances. For instance, when she is twelve, she rejects communion and its idea. The realism in her head is too much to be handled by anyone. Polly then moves to live with her elderly family members, Arthur Thwaite and his sister Cecilia, who live in Yorkshire moors, some distance away. Here again, life takes a different turn. Polly meets various new people — poets, thinkers, writers, believers, musicians and dreamers and this further shapes her character and persona, leading to an end which will for sure surprise readers and make them drop their jaw slightly.

The things that worked for me in the book: Northeast Rural England is not a place I would be visiting sometime too soon. Reading about it and trying to imagine the moors as I did while reading Wuthering Heights and the scenes that play out is a different experience by itself. The charm is unbearable. The characters as I mentioned earlier took me by surprise with their wide range of eccentricity and comfort provided to Polly at times.

Gardam may not talk about them in detail during the course of the book, however when she does, she ensures that their voices are heard. At times the pace of the book got to me. It was turning out to be slower than what I had expected, but I kept reading, because of the writing and the plot. Polly as a character is hard to put my finger on. She is everything and at the same time, she springs from the pages and does something totally unexpected. Gardam for visualizing and bringing her to life in our heads. The writing is not only descriptive but also insightful.

Jane wants us to empathize with her characters, what they are going through, but never sympathize. It is discovering oneself through everything. It is not a thriller. It is not your usual fare. So read it only if the story appeals to you.

Oct 05, Hilary rated it liked it Shelves: The story starts with a six year old orphan arriving to live with two aunts, her life with them is isolated and not getting the love from them she needs she clings to a book, Robinson Crusoe. Polly was a hard character to get to know, parts of the book I struggled to enjoy, the second half was much more interesting. I do like it when a book follows someone through their life but this can also seem sad too, to see a child age and grow old over a few days of your life.

Polly didn't seem to find th The story starts with a six year old orphan arriving to live with two aunts, her life with them is isolated and not getting the love from them she needs she clings to a book, Robinson Crusoe. Polly didn't seem to find the footprint in the sand she was looking for, at the end Polly seems to have come full circle although the arrival of two young people which to me was the most interesting point in the book with regards to how Polly would react to this and how her life would change was left for the reader to fill in the blanks.

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Northern England, , and young Polly Flint is brought to stay and to be raised by her two very Christian aunts. Books are her solace and Robinson Crusoe her favorite. Throughout the years she would turn again and again to this book, so identifying with him and his situation. She would very seldom leave the island again, due to circumstances, tragedies and obligation.

She would compare the plight of 3. She would compare the plight of being a woman as being stuck and imprisoned, like her hero Robinson Crusoe. Although she would seldom leave, history would be brought to her, World War I and II, would both change her life in various ways. Although this is an early Gardam, her wonderful writing ability, which would only get stronger in subsequent books, is already apparent. Beautiful descriptions, especially of the marsh, humorous passages, quirky characters and a story that covers over six decades in very few pages.

A profound and entertain look at a young woman's survival, her fight to find a life for herself within the limitations and tragedies inherent in her situation.

KIRKUS REVIEW

Enjoyed this very much. Made me want to re-read Robinson Crusoe. View all 9 comments. It's hard to write a review for a book I loved so much because I want to gush over it. I have read a couple of other Jane Gardam books and loved them, but this one really resonated with me on a very personal level. In short, Polly Flint read "Robinson Crusoe" as a child and used him as a guide for her life. She was marooned with two very religious maiden aunts in a house by the sea, but created a landscape for herself from the fiction she read. It's a book about how fiction can save us, and how It's hard to write a review for a book I loved so much because I want to gush over it.

Comfort reading: Crusoe's Daughter by Jane Gardam | Books | The Guardian

It's a book about how fiction can save us, and how we can also get lost in it if we're not careful. Like Crusoe, she finds her Friday who helps to save her from an island of her own making. Eighty years in the life of a woman who uses a book written in the eighteenth century to navigate her life in the twentieth. I have discovered Jane Gardam only relatively recently, and love her spare and elegant style.

I enjoyed this book very much. The young orphan cared for very kindly by her comparatively elderly aunts, who knows almost nothing of the real world and shares much of her life with her hero, Robinson Crusoe. Despite her reclusive life, it is for her full of rich incidents as she lives through most of the tumultuous 20th century.

There are few contemporary writers who give one me, at least that feeling of intense pleasure we used to have w Crusoe's Daughter by Jane Gardam Europa Editions, There are few contemporary writers who give one me, at least that feeling of intense pleasure we used to have when we read as children, and Gardam is one of them.

This may be because she was herself—as one can see from this novel—a child in love with reading. Crusoe s Daughter is a metaphor for someone in this case, a woman who lives in isolation and creates a whole universe in the same way Crusoe created his island and God the world.

The narrative starts when the protagonist is six years old and, orphaned, moves in with her aunts in a remote yellow house by the sea, and ends when she is in her eighties. The second best are the scenes taking place at the Thwaite villa Mr. Thwaite is a Dickensian character who, initially, has a marginal role, but in the end—like in those early nineteenth-century novels that have inspired this book—turns out to be closely related to our protagonist.

Jane Gardam is one of the wittiest and most talented writers writing in English today. Aug 06, Theresa Tomlinson rated it it was amazing. This is one of my favourite books, I have read it two or three times and re-read it recently - everytime I read it I cry at a certain point in the story, even though I know it's coming. Each time I read it i discover more detail and parts thati hadn't fully appreciated. It tells the story of Polly Flint who is orphaned as a young girl and sent to live with two maiden aunts who live on the north east coast of England, in a house that's almost like a ship beached on an island, surrounded by sand.

The aunts are kind but rather unworldly, she struggles with loneliness and battles her way through life using Robinson Crusoe as support,philosophy, a role model. We see the whole of her life pass by, with many near heartbreaking moments and also a great deal of humour - the end is both satisfying and uplifting. Jane Gardams clear, direct prose is a joy to read. I will read it again!

Oct 09, Lydia rated it it was amazing Shelves: I'm an ardent Jane Gardam fan, and will read all of her 21 books She deserves all acclaim. They live in a seaside town in northern England. The aunts begin Polly's German, math, writing, and church training. The writing is rich and thoughtful. We follow Polly as becomes a teenager, an aunt goes off to Africa with the pastor, Polly goes to her grandfather's artist's colon I'm an ardent Jane Gardam fan, and will read all of her 21 books We follow Polly as becomes a teenager, an aunt goes off to Africa with the pastor, Polly goes to her grandfather's artist's colony, Polly comes back, opens a boarding house, writes a book, gets drunk, and sorts out life in her 80s--always with reverence to her idol Robinson Crusoe.

It all sounds very blase' and it is, to some extent--but this is a book that comforts English majors and reminds them of books they read long ago. I laugh and I cry. I expect Dickens was jealous Crusoe just always was. He's very human and at the same time almost a god. I liked her book "Old Filth" for the same reason. That book brought her the long-overdue attention she deserves. Her novels are remarkable for their insinuation of the emotional undercurrents of ordinary lives.

With the fine tip of her word-brush, she paints a portrait of an intelligent, bookish girl who, at the turn of the 20th century, goes to live on the isolated northeast coast of Yorkshire with her spinster aunts and remains there into her own old age. Their success in life in these immovable, unrelenting country places was judged by their ability to get married as soon as possible to a suitable man who could support them, to breed, to live chaste and never to think of working for their living. It is quiet and exciting at the same time, full of ordinary events and emotion, much of it repressed.

This one I really like - good evocation of past and descriptions of a particular place - by the sea, the marsh, the villages around etc. I picked up Bilgewater next and have not been able to get past the first 3 chapters. Mar 02, Lola G. I love any story from a girl's point of view, especially one set in such a beautiful place, but this story just dragged on and on. I liked the beginning with descriptions of her simple life with her aunts in the yellow house, but the story got very boring after awhile.

I think a turning point was her visit to Thwait's. Even writing that name makes me kind of cringe because it was so dull. The end really didn't line up with the beginning at all. It's as if she wrote the first half then took a yea I love any story from a girl's point of view, especially one set in such a beautiful place, but this story just dragged on and on. It's as if she wrote the first half then took a year break and quickly finished it.

She's a young girl for most of the book, then all of a sudden becomes an alcoholic school marm who gains custody of two surviving children of the Holocaust.

If all that wasn't enough, it was riddled with spelling errors and typos. Nov 19, Jill rated it it was amazing.

Crusoe's Daughter followed a path that I didn't expect, and I liked not knowing where it was leading or how to react to the long progression of years. It was moving, I felt despair, joy and hope for Polly Flint. You come to know the characters the same way a child does, at first just superficially and then as years go by with the deeper understanding and forgiveness that maturity brings. The revelation that Polly's life is remarkable presents itself slowly over time too.

There was a dreamy, magic Crusoe's Daughter followed a path that I didn't expect, and I liked not knowing where it was leading or how to react to the long progression of years. There was a dreamy, magical quality to the story and the writing was evocative especially when describing the yellow house by the sea where she lived and where I would love to spend an afternoon reading near a sunny window.

View all 3 comments. May 08, Josh rated it really liked it Shelves: Outside of John Irving, and excluding fantasy or science fiction works, Jane Gardam may be my most widely read author of fiction. Elegant would be more appropriate; moving, graceful, poetic, rich and bitingly witty also apply here.

Raised by her two aunts, Polly experiences little of what many would call a normal life, even by the standards of an early 20th century rural English life. With no father figure, and little in the way of motherly affection, Polly finds herself completely unsuited to the realities and expectations of the world outside her yellow house, Oversands, situated on the marshes with a view of the sea. Polly finds herself consistently surprised and thus unprepared for the realities of an adult life, from societal and class differences and the necessary steps one must take in order to secure money for food, lodging and the like.

Gardam has a way in everything of hers I have read of using her characters and plot machinations to address, and often criticize English societal norms in the 20th century.

The reader is left to wonder what her life would be like had she had been raised outside of the closeted world in which she came up. We see glimpses of that life in other characters, like the housekeeper Charlotte, the Zeit family and the adorably endearing Mr. Class, religion and propriety bring heavy consequences for each of these characters in their own way. She inhabits this work so completely that I felt what she did; I mourned and celebrated with her, discovered and despaired at the twists of fate life pulled her through and thought, this is someone I would gladly sit with and have a cup of tea.

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If you are a fan of her previous works, or looking for a great way to jump into them, you will enjoy this. Jul 09, Jeffrey Rasley rated it really liked it. Gardam is a marvelous writer.

But the sequel, "The Man with the Wooden Hat" was a great disappointment. It was difficult to accept that shallow work came from the same pen.

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